ST.
LOUIS • Rodney Lee Lincoln has spent nearly half his life in prison,
and it shows.

His
thin, pale body looks fragile. His ailments range from a heart
arrhythmia to gout. His eyes are tired, his drawl slow and shaky as he
talks about hopes dimmed over time.

Rodney
Lee Lincoln at the Jefferson City Correctional Center on May 20, 2011.
Photo by Laurie Skrivan |skrivan@post-dispatch

Once
this life is over, Lincoln, who is 66, will still owe the state
another, plus 15 years, to satisfy his sentence for the killing of
JoAnn Clenney Tate and the brutal assault on her two young daughters in
St. Louis 29 years ago.

He's
professed his innocence since his arrest, but the claim is not
particularly unusual, or relevant, at the maximum-security Jefferson
City Correctional Center.

"I'd
done given up," he said in a recent interview there.

But
he does have a chance.

Lincoln
was convicted on the word of a traumatized little girl and his
compatibility with a hair found at the crime scene. DNA testing
recently showed the hair was not his. Now a judge will decide whether
it's enough to free him.

It
was a twisted road that put him in prison, and it's a twisted road that
might lead back out.

When
Circuit Attorney Jennifer Joyce's office reviewed about 1,400
pre-DNA-era convictions in 2003, Lincoln's was one of the original six
chosen for testing to see if it would make a difference.

While
the hair and other evidence would be analyzed, the real focus was
scrapings from under Tate's fingernails — most likely to be left by the
killer. But the scrapings were missing, and not found until last year
during a routine audit of evidence. Testing proceeded at that point,
but the material was degraded beyond use.

Joyce's
office is now opposing Lincoln's motion for release, insisting the hair
alone is not enough. Attorneys with the Midwestern Innocence Project,
who took up Lincoln's case in 2005, argue otherwise.

St.
Louis Circuit Court Judge Robin Vannoy will decide this summer whether
Lincoln will be the fifth man in St. Louis — and seventh statewide —
exonerated by DNA technology.

It's
a glimmer of hope that allows Lincoln, for the first time, to
cautiously consider life outside razor-wire fences.

"The
best description I can give you is I was in a hole and someone lifted
the lid," he said. "It's way up there, but there's light."

A
‘SLAUGHTERHOUSE'

JoAnn
Tate's family called her "Jo-Baby." She was 35 and heavyset, with pale
skin, brown eyes and jet black hair. She sold Avon cosmetics and played
the piano and accordion at nursing homes.

She
had been in a string of bad — sometimes abusive — relationships, her
family said. She thought she could change men but apparently feared
something: She slept with a hatchet under her mattress in an apartment
in the 1400 block of Farrar Street, in the Hyde Park neighborhood.

About
4 a.m. on April 27, 1982, an upstairs neighbor heard a loud banging
sound.

Tate's
brother, Nathaniel Clenney, arrived about 10 a.m. with her boyfriend,
Gerald Woodward, alarmed that she wasn't answering the phone. Tate was
facedown in a pool of blood, fatally stabbed in the chest and sexually
assaulted with a broomstick. Daughters Melissa, 7, and Renee, 4,
survived grievous wounds. Melissa was stabbed about 10 times, and
Renee's throat was cut. They were under blankets in their beds.

"It
was a slaughterhouse," Clenney said recently. "You can't even imagine
in your worst nightmare what I saw."

In
shock, Clenney screamed at Melissa: "Who did this? Who did this?"

She
replied in a small voice, "Bill did it."

It
was a name she would repeat for weeks to detectives and hospital staff,
at one point saying she had heard her mother call out Bill's name
during the attack.

LOOKING
FOR BILL

Tate's
active dating history left much for police to explore. Detective Joe
Burgoon, a legend among St. Louis homicide investigators, was one of
those leading the way.

Melissa
was eventually shown 38 photos, 17 of men named Bill or William. She
dismissed them all.

Among
the notable suspects was Henry Eugene Webb. He had pleaded guilty a
year earlier to shooting Johnny Davis, Tate's then-boyfriend, in the
throat and shoulder at a tavern on North 14th Street. Tate saw the
shooting and, according to court documents, was on the list to testify
against him. She wrote in her diary that a man named Bill participated.

Webb,
who had a long history of felonies, was released to a St. Louis halfway
house 12 days before Tate's murder. His court file has sparse detail
about the shooting. Davis, who survived, said recently that he did not
remember a Bill being there.

Among
others checked were two ex-boyfriends with criminal histories: one who
reportedly had been violent toward Tate and was in a financial dispute
with her, and another named Billy. Both had alibis. Melissa didn't
react to their photos.

Officials
and family peppered Melissa with questions. On one occasion, she said,
"They stabbed us." On another, a relative offered the name of another
boyfriend and asked, "Was it Gary?" Melissa said yes, but later resumed
calling the killer Bill.

Melissa
eventually produced more details: The attacker drove a yellow cab. She,
her sister and mother slept at his house in May, crossing a bridge to
get there. He lived with his mother, who had cats and dogs, in a
two-story, gray-shingled home across from a park with a merry-go-round.
He lived near her father, who was in Cahokia.

Detectives
searched for such a park and drove the girls to several. Each time,
they said no.

FROM
BILL TO ROD

After
about a month, detectives got a break. Melissa gave the name of a
family friend who she said looked like her attacker. A sketch artist
worked with her, using that friend's face as a starting point. Tate's
siblings said the composite resembled a man they knew as Rod. Burgoon
found the name and number of a Rod in Tate's notebook. When he called,
Rodney Lincoln's mother answered.

Burgoon
learned that Lincoln and Tate were involved briefly the previous
summer. Moreover, Lincoln, a driver for a grocer, had a record: two
burglaries and a second-degree murder conviction for killing a man in a
drunken fight in 1973.

Lincoln
lived with his mother in the 8100 block of Minnesota Avenue, near a
playground like Melissa described. Lincoln told police that Tate and
her girls spent a night there the summer before.

Burgoon
went to the girls with Lincoln's mugshot and a Polaroid of a distant
relative. He remembers clearly Melissa's reaction: "She picked him out
and said, ‘That's him.' I said, ‘Are you sure? His name is not Bill.'
She said, ‘That's him.'?"

Renee
threw down Lincoln's picture and covered her face.

Police
arrested Lincoln as he was grilling pork steaks and drinking a Busch
beer in his backyard. They put him in a lineup and Melissa chose him
again. Renee took a look and buried her head into Burgoon's shoulder.

Rodney
Lee Lincoln was convicted for the murder of JoAnn Clenney Tate in 1982.
In this lineup photos obtained from the police by Lincoln's daughter,
Kay Lincoln, he is pictured second from the right. Lincoln, the only
man with short, black hair, stands next to three men who all had long,
reddish hair.

WHAT
TO BELIEVE?

Lincoln
offered his mother and a girlfriend as an alibi. Jurors in his first
trial in August 1983 deadlocked. On Oct. 7, 1983, an all-male jury
rejected a first-degree murder count and convicted him of manslaughter
and first-degree assault, based mostly on Melissa's testimony.

"It's
him," she testified, pointing at Lincoln.

But
what about Bill? Melissa told the court she panicked and felt compelled
to provide a name. Defense lawyers complained that the discrepancy cast
doubt on everything she said.

There
was almost no physical evidence. Experts testified a pubic hair from
Melissa's bed could have belonged to Lincoln, or not. Police found
nothing useful in fingerprints, blood stains or rape examinations. DNA
testing would not come around for another nine years.

The
Innocence Project says nearly 75 percent of the 271 DNA exonerations
nationwide involved eyewitness errors at trial. In all four in St.
Louis — three handled by the Midwestern Innocence Project and one
argued independently — a victim identified someone later cleared by
science.

Burgoon,
now retired from the city and working cold cases for St. Louis County
police, understands the skepticism but explained, "You work with what
you've got."

He
is confident Lincoln did it, noting Melissa was bright and articulate
and had ample time to see the killer. "The kids were there, they said
it was him," he said. "Children don't lie."

He
said it was important to the police to get it right. "The last thing we
want to do is put the wrong guy away."

THE
FIGHT FOR FREEDOM

In
their motion for Lincoln's release, defense lawyers argue it was unfair
for Burgoon to show just two pictures, only hours before a formal
lineup. They point to inconsistencies in Melissa's statements and parts
of her description of the attacker that don't match Lincoln. For
example, Lincoln lived in south St. Louis, drove a green Ford station
wagon and his mom owned one dog. And his name wasn't Bill.

Then
there was the DNA test on the hair from the bed.

"You
have to look at what this DNA exclusion means in connection with all
the evidence," said Sean O'Brien, a board member at Midwestern
Innocence Project and professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas
City. "Is this a case that they could have made without the hair? The
obvious answer in this case is no."

Under
a 2001 statute for post-conviction DNA testing, Lincoln's lawyers have
to prove by a preponderance of evidence he is innocent.

Ed
Postawko, an assistant circuit attorney, insists they cannot. Since the
hair was not known for certain to be that of the killer, the DNA does
not exclude Lincoln, he said. He said the hair was never central to
Lincoln's conviction.

But
Lincoln's lawyers point out that in the second trial, the prosecution
called more experts to speak to the hair — a sign they thought it was
significant. Also, the recent DNA testing showed that a hair found on
Renee — initially thought to be hers — did not belong to Lincoln or any
of the victims.

Whether
the judge can consider factors other than the DNA has been barely
tested in court. In at least one state appeals court case, a judge
ruled that the credibility of a witness should not be considered.

Of
20 city cases eventually accepted for DNA review, seven confirmed
guilt, a fact that Joyce said doesn't get enough attention. In the four
exonerations, evidence tested was linked directly to the actual
perpetrator, such as semen from a rapist. The rest were inconclusive or
are pending.

Postawko
said when Lincoln's case was selected for testing, prosecutors had seen
only trial transcripts and police reports and did not know what
evidence was available to test.

"Nobody
was talking about Rodney Lincoln until we identified him as meeting our
criteria," Joyce noted.

WAITING
FOR WORD

Melissa,
now in her late 30s and living in Pennsylvania, declined to be
interviewed. Her family said Lincoln's potential release dealt a heavy
blow to her efforts to move on. Her sister, Renee, has died of ovarian
cancer.

Daniel
Clenney, one of Tate's brothers, only recently began talking about the
attack.

"The
murder broke up the whole family," he said.

He
and other family members believe in their guts that Lincoln was guilty.

Lincoln's
daughter, Kay, was 13 when he was arrested. Her mother, divorced from
her father, shielded her from it. In the past decade, however, she has
delved into his case and recruited the Midwestern Innocence Project to
help. She points out that her father reported to work at 8 a.m. the day
of the crime and had two young daughters of his own.

"They
had a high-profile crime, they had a scared neighborhood and they had
some traumatized, horribly attacked little girls," she said. "Instead
of finding the person who committed the crime, they made the crime fit
the person."

Lincoln
only knows his four adult children through phone calls and visits. He
has 17 grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren he's never met.

He
figures his criminal past made him a target.

Lincoln
confessed to the 1973 murder, which he called "a terrible thing" and
for which he served two years in prison. Lincoln said the man he killed
— whose name he can't even remember — made sexual advances, and rage
got the best of him.

"I
paid my dues," Lincoln said, adding that he had vowed to get his life
back on track after his release.

"Am
I capable of killing? Yes, I've proved that," he said. "The crimes that
I'm charged with now, killing a woman, child molesting? I can be a mean
person. I'm not a freakish person, and there's a big difference."